Cold Coffee
by Raven25
Summary: Daniel and Sam, both awake at three o'clock in the morning...


There was an allure, an attraction, a real spark present. It was true not everyone could see it, but it was there nonetheless. Sam supposed she understood why so few people noticed it, but sometimes she wondered…  
  
She wished more people understood wormhole physics the way she did. She wished more people found it as scintillating as she did. There was an allure in the mathematics of it. The way in which it all fitted together, the key to it, which she knew was there, but just out of her reach. If she could only grab on to it, write it down before the precious equations floated away…  
  
"Burning the midnight oil again?"  
  
The soft drawling voice startled Sam out of her wits. Wheeling round, she knocked a mug off the table and sent it crashing to the ground. Mercifully, it was empty, and didn't smash, but broke into three large pieces.  
  
"Shit!"  
  
Sam stood up and faced a pair of laughing blue eyes, half-hidden by the long hair that had fallen across her friend's face. "Daniel…" she growled.  
  
"I'm sorry," he said peaceably. "I didn't mean to startle you."  
  
"It's all right," Sam said. "I was kinda… lost in my work."  
  
"Which would explain why I find you here at three o'clock in the morning," Daniel said dryly, making Sam turn and look at him indignantly. "Excuse me, Dr. Jackson, but just what are you doing here at this time?"  
  
Daniel smiled, and said wryly, "Point taken. Look, I was going for coffee. I guessed you might want some."  
  
"Well, even if I didn't before, I do now," she said, pointing dramatically at the remnants of her mug. Daniel grinned. "Come on," he said. "Let's go and get some."  
  
The duo made their way out of Sam's lab and down to the commissary. They found it to be deserted, but the pair had had enough experience in getting their own coffee and were soon on their way back, cups of steaming aromatic liquid in their hands.  
  
Daniel's study was the closest, so that was where they went, closing the door behind them. Daniel glanced idly at the mess on his desk, and then brushed most of it away, making way for the two coffee cups.  
  
"Is that what you were working on?" Sam asked, pointing at the mess.  
  
"Yeah," Daniel said ruefully. "Haven't been getting anywhere though. I don't know what I thought I could achieve at three am, but still…"  
  
Sam understood exactly what he meant, and smiled at him. "God, look at us, Daniel," she said. "It's Wednesday night. Other people would have gone home to their families. Right now they'd be fast asleep. In the morning, they'd wake up, have breakfast, say goodbye to their wife/husband, and go to work, knowing that by five in the evening, they'd be home. But look at us. We haven't gone home, and we know we might not for days. And we could have gone tonight, but we…"  
  
"Didn't," Daniel supplied. "We chose not to. And people go out with their friends, or go on dates, or whatever."  
  
"Yeah," Sam said. "I could 'go on dates, or whatever.' But just look at me. It's the middle of the night, and I'm sitting in a top secret military base, drinking coffee, and moaning about my pathetic love life."  
  
"Hey!" Daniel said. "You don't win all the medals in that area. Talking about pathetic love lives…" He pointed at his own head, and looked mock- mournful.  
  
There was a silence, broken only by the ticking of the clock and the sound of coffee being sipped.  
  
"You know," said Daniel suddenly, with a wicked look in his blue eyes, "we're here. You and me. I'm a civilian. There are no military regulations to forbid it…"  
  
Sam glanced at him impishly. She knew exactly where he was going with this train of thought. "Listen to me, Daniel," she said. "I'm going to tell you what my mother told me on my fifteenth birthday."  
  
"What?"  
  
"She said to me, 'Honey, at least once in your life, you're going to meet what seems like the perfect guy for you. He'll be sensitive, funny and a good listener. But you must bear one thing in mind…'"  
  
"What?" Daniel asked.  
  
"'He will either be too old for you, or…'"  
  
"Or…"  
  
"Or he will be gay."  
  
"Sam!" Even in the dim light of the room, Sam could see Daniel blushing in confusion, and almost regretted the trick she'd played on the young archaeologist. Almost, but not quite.  
  
"Seriously, Daniel," Sam went on, "you have to remember, five seconds after I met you, I met your wife."  
  
Daniel looked at her, an unfathomable expression in his eyes, and then reached out to the picture of Sha're in front of him, lifting it and placing it face down on the desk. The poignant gesture reminded Sam of just how young Daniel was to be widowed.  
  
"But apart from Sha're, there never really was anyone," Daniel said regretfully. "Except maybe Sarah… but she was an exception."  
  
"You don't have any idea, do you?" Sam said delightedly. "You really don't."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Half the women on this base think you're… you're…"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, 'cute' is the word they use most often," Sam revealed, enjoying the surprised, embarrassed look on Daniel's face. But he had a quick retort on his tongue. "What price Simmons?" he said cuttingly. "The man worships the ground you walk on."  
  
"Daniel!" Sam wailed. "Why did you have to bring that up?"  
  
"And there was that other guy," Daniel went on, seriously now. "Jonas Hansen."  
  
"I never really loved him, Daniel," Sam said thoughtfully. "I might have said I did… and God knows he never said it back… but I never did. And you know what happened to him in the end."  
  
"Let's hope the next time you tell a guy you love him, he does say it back," Daniel said soothingly.  
  
"Well, let me see," said Sam mischievously. "I love you, Daniel."  
  
Daniel grinned, and looked into her eyes. "I love you too, Sam."  
  
  
  
Jack O'Neill always liked to be up bright and early on the morning of a mission. He was confident his teammates felt the same. However, when he reached the base, there was no sign of them. Grumbling slightly, he went in search of them. His first stop was Carter's lab, but that was empty. Getting slightly more irritated, he went to the elevator and up to level eighteen.  
  
The door of Daniel's study was closed. Jack knocked, and when there was no reply, pushed it open gently. Daniel had his head in his arms on the desk, and was quite clearly fast asleep. But Jack was startled to see the other chair in the room occupied as well. Carter lay with her head right back, her hair falling into her mouth. She was also clearly deeply asleep.  
  
Jack glanced around, and considered giving them one of his best military reveilles, but felt the explosion of sound in the small room might be too much for his young scientists at this hour. Instead, he called, gently enough, "Kids! Wake up. Daniel! Carter! Wake up!"  
  
They came awake slowly, both stretching and rubbing at their eyes. "Do you know what time it is, kids?" Jack demanded.  
  
Daniel stared at him, bewildered. Jack decided not to ask questions. "It's oh-eight-hundred hours," he told him. "We are scheduled to move out at eleven hundred hours. I will expect to see you there in the Gate room, bright eyed and bushy tailed!"  
  
He left.  
  
Daniel stared at Sam. "We have a mission today?" he said hoarsely.  
  
Sam stared back. "Yes, we do."  
  
"Oh, God." Daniel stood up and immediately wished he hadn't. Trying to ignore the fact he had spent the night in a sadistically uncomfortable military chair, he reached for the mug on the desk and lifted it.  
  
"Daniel!" said Sam sharply, thinking she could guess what he was about to do. "You can't drink that! It's been sitting there for hours!"  
  
"I'm not going to drink it." Daniel sniffed at the gritty liquid, and explained, "I'm trying to see if anyone's spiked it."  
  
"What? Why?"  
  
"'Cause I feel hung over," he said incoherently.  
  
"Oh, it wasn't spiked. I've seen you drunk, Daniel, and you definitely weren't last night."  
  
Daniel set the mug down on the desk. "Then why do I feel hung over?"  
  
"Because you have had… let me see…" She looked at her watch, and continued, "Four and a half hours' sleep."  
  
"And we have a mission this morning?"  
  
"Yep."  
  
"Oh, Jack is definitely going to kill us."  
  
"Maybe not." Sam had a strange look on her face. "Maybe… not."  
  
"What?" Daniel turned to face her. "What are you trying to say?"  
  
"Well…" Sam began. "When he came in, he saw we are both in the same clothes we were wearing last night, only slightly more crumpled, right? And because we were both asleep, we must have been in here quite a while, right? We were both in this room… alone… together… for the whole night… with the door closed…"  
  
Daniel held her gaze a few seconds longer, and then abruptly turned to go out. "I don't want to know," he said firmly. "I don't even want to think about where this is going!"  
  
"Thanks," she said, jumping up to follow him. "Nice to know how you actually feel about that idea!"  
  
"What? No, Sam, I didn't mean that…"  
  
They began making their way down the corridor, both knowing without speaking that their destination was the commissary, their goal, more coffee.  
  
Sam grinned at the archaeologist. "I know. I just like teasing you."  
  
"Ya think?"  
  
Sam laughed. "I do think. And Daniel…"  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"We're not going to… correct the colonel, are we?"  
  
"You mean, we're going to let him think that when we say we're working late, we're actually keeping hot and sticky midnight trysts with each other?"  
  
"I don't believe you just said that."  
  
"Neither do I. So, do we let him believe that?"  
  
A glance passed between them, two friends close enough to communicate without words. Sam licked her lips, and Daniel laughed softly.  
  
The commissary staff were used to seeing Major Carter and Dr. Jackson come here for coffee at all hours of the day and night. Perhaps some of them wondered at the close friendship between the two. Perhaps some of them preferred to mind their own business. Perhaps this wasn't the only time cups of coffee sat on Daniel's desk overnight. Perhaps the mess was sometimes knocked violently off Daniel's desk for another reason.  
  
Perhaps.  
  
*fin* 


End file.
